State to decide on House District 55 recount

FORT PIERCE — The state will announce Friday whether a hand recount is needed in the too-close-to-call Florida House District 55 Republican primary.

Each of the four counties that make up the district must submit their machine-recounted election results to the state by noon Friday, according to St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections Gertrude Walker. If a hand-recount is called, those results are due by noon Sunday and a decision will be announced Monday, Walker said.

The possibility of a recount automatically was triggered because newcomer Cary Pigman and career politician Randy Johnson were separated by a mere 30 votes. The district has 156,000 some residents, according to a state official.

"If any candidate is eliminated by a half percent or less, by law, there is an automatic machine count," Walker said, followed by a hand recount if the results don't change.

The newly formed House district includes western St. Lucie County and all of Okeechobee, Highlands and Glades counties.

St. Lucie County has 4,216 residents in the district, about 2.7 percent of the total. Of those, the 499 who voted in the county's four precincts that fall within the new district — 28, 29, 33 and 93 — solidly supported Johnson with 67.33 percent of the vote, while Pigman garnered 32.57 percent, according to the elections website.

"I want to thank the people in St. Lucie County for their overwhelming support in this election and I appreciate the confidence very much and we'll see how the recount sorts itself out," Johnson said. "We will see what happens after the recount and move on with the election cycle; elections are part of what makes America great and it only takes one vote to win."

Pigman did not return phone calls seeking comment on the election.

Pigman won 4,643 of the 8,079 votes cast in Highlands, but Johnson won 1,849 of the 2,748 votes cast in Okeechobee, 336 of the 499 votes cast in St. Lucie, and 323 of the 269 votes cast in Glades. The total was 5,974 for Pigman and 5,944 for Johnson.

The winner will face Democratic candidate Crystal Drake in the Nov. 6 general election.

The district's boundaries run north from Martin County on Range Line Road to Glades Cut-Off Road to C324. They continue on Shinn Road west on Midway Road to Interstate 95 and reach to the Florida Turnpike northward to Orange Avenue Extension to Laid Back Way, and from there west on West Angle Road to the county line.